Pulp and Paper

Large-scale tree monocultures to produce pulp and paper, along with the infrastructure and pulp mills that come with these plantations, have been expanding onto communities’ fertile lands. They have destroyed forests and grasslands, especially in Latin America, Asia and Southern Africa. The species used are fast-growing and not native to these countries. They include varieties of eucalyptus, acacia and pine trees.

Bulletin articles 24 October 2024
Besides the direct impacts on communities’ lives, eucalyptus monoculture plantations represent absurd and obscene inequality. A group of 45 community people with whom we spoke was shocked to learn that it would take them 2,300 years of non-stop work to collectively earn the same amount that a single Portuguese family, one of the owners of the plantation company they work for, earned in one single year from the profits of their shares in the company.
Other information 22 August 2024
On July 5, 2024, three peasant families were violently evicted in Paraje San Lorenzo 2, in the municipality of Wanda, in the Argentine province of Misiones. The provincial police carried out the eviction, in collaboration with the multinational company, Arauco. During the operation, the police destroyed the ten-hectare farm which had been the families' livelihood for a decade.
Bulletin articles 25 October 2023
Exchanges between activists put the voices of those who fight to defend their territories at the center of the conversation. In September, members of communities from Brazil and Mozambique united their struggles and connected their histories once again, helping to strengthen solidarity in the fight against industrial tree plantations.
Bulletin articles 16 June 2022
The Independent Producers of Piray (PIP) in Misiones, Argentina was formed in 2005 to stop the advance of multinational Arauco’s pine tree monocultures and reclaim the land. WRM spoke with Miriam Samudio, a key member of the PIP family, to reflect on the process of the struggle and the lessons learned.
Bulletin articles 17 December 2021

On the frontlines of the promotion of monoculture tree plantations as a solution to the climate crisis, families affected by tree plantations in Mozambique, Tanzania and Brazil, have once again denounced the serious impacts on their lives and the environment.

Bulletin articles 26 September 2018

Over the last ten years, through organization and struggle, families in northeast Argentina have managed to recover land monopolized by multinational corporation Arauco. Now, they are growing food there.